Why did Apple ban Dash? What are they so afraid of?

Corporate technology giant Apple has banned trailblazing digital currency Dash from its App Store. What we should be asking is why is Apple so threatened by Dash? Other digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Monero (with its links to the Dark Net) have been allowed to operate unfettered. So why has Apple made this move and what does it mean for the future of online currency?

Dash is a digital currency that enables users to transfer money, securely and privately, without the need for financial intermediaries such as banks. It is a currency in its own right but is controlled by computer software rather than the Federal Reserve or any other entity. It can be integrated seamlessly into existing apps. In short, it has the potential to render the traditional banking system as obsolete. It could change everything.

Recently the developers at Jaxx integrated Dash into its highly popular iOS and Android apps. A couple of weeks after its App Store roll-out Apple ordered Jaxx to remove Dash from its app, giving it a deadline by which to comply. Apple refused to reveal to Jaxx the reasons behind their demands. Apple was contacted and asked why it had ordered Dash’s removal. Their reply: “We can’t tell you.”

What is Apple so afraid of? Who, or what, does the existence of Dash threaten? Does this amount to censorship of exciting new technology? Is Apple acting alone or are other more powerful organizations, or governments, pulling the strings?

It could be that global banking power brokers are keen to shut down any potentially successful and lucrative competing money transfer/currency system. Anything that makes them irrelevant is dangerous. Equally, Apple has its own Apple Pay software that it is desperately trying to push on iOS users. Gaining a dominant position in the payments industry could make Apple billions of dollars.

Photographer: Craig Warga/Bloomberg

Apple has a reputation for banning third party apps that threaten to undermine its business model. In 2009, when iPhone was still an AT&T product, Apple famously banned the new Google Voice app because people would be able to use it to make calls on their iPhones, which would have vastly reduced AT&T’s profits. Is Apple once again shelving the wishes of its customers to boost their own (or a partner’s) bottom line? Dash’s decentralized user-to-user technology would certainly pose a significant threat.

Could the Dash model also strike a blow into the deep heart of governmental power – the power to print money? Control over the supply of money gives a government virtually unlimited power. They can pull the currency strings of inflation, deflation, or debasement, at any time to achieve their ends. Think of a world where every citizen has abandoned the flat government-controlled currencies in favor of online currencies that are controlled by nobody? This would absolutely strike fear in every government on Earth.

Maybe Apple is ambivalent, or even secretly supportive, toward Dash. Maybe the U.S. Government is acting as puppet master here – fighting against upstart technologists such as Dash and using Apple to fight a proxy war.

It used to be that Apple was the firebrand upstart fighting against “the man” on behalf of the people. Remember their iconic 1984 Superbowl ad that portrayed them striking a blow against a 1984-style Big Brother, to overturn the existing order, to guard the masses against an Orwellian future?